Tag Archives: #Melbourne

Richmond 3121

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What makes a great suburb? Location? Infrastructure? Public transport? Affordable housing? Great coffee? Schools, shops, restaurants and amenities? Probably all these and more…. Although housing costs are comparatively high, Melbourne is frequently rated as one of the world’s most livable cities. I would argue that part of its success lies in the distinct personalities of many of its key suburbs, such as Richmond (postcode 3121).

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I have lived in this inner city suburb for the past 14 years, which is by far the longest time I lived in one place. I love the convenience (within walking distance to the CBD, close to the river and parks, and well served by trains and trams) and the diversity (it’s comfortable yet retains a somewhat grungy character). I must admit to feeling spoiled at times, because I don’t need a car, and often take for granted the proximity to Melbourne’s cultural and sporting precincts.

Although there have been some enormous changes in the past 10 years, mainly thanks to more apartment developments that have brought in high-end restaurants, hipster bars and cafes, and artisan food outlets, even I was surprised when a new branch of Avenue Bookstore opened on Swan Street a few months ago. Maybe this was the missing ingredient? It turns out that the most popular categories are cooking titles (inspired by all the new eateries?) and children’s books (a result of the recent influx of younger couples starting families?). In any event, this probably plays up Richmond’s aspirations to being a bit intellectual – after all, it is within the administrative boundaries of the People’s Republic of Yarra…

A while back, in a Saturday newspaper article on Melbourne’s trendier suburbs, Richmond was described as being like Switzerland: neutral territory between the hipster-filled Bo-Bo* land of Fitzroy and Collingwood to the north, and the fashionista playground of South Yarra and Toorak to the south. And although in the Corner Hotel, Richmond has one of the best live music venues in Australia, it no longer has any record stores (which are now clustered in Collingwood’s Johnson Street, and Fitzroy’s Brunswick Street).

In recent times, Richmond (along with the adjacent suburb of Cremorne) has also become an epicentre for Melbourne’s thriving startup community and co-working culture. Co-working spaces such as Inspire9, Lennox Street Exchange and Launchpad, along with a multitude of shared creative spaces, have helped to host, incubate or entice local and global startups like LIFX, Stripe, Culture Amp, Uber, Tablo, CareMonkey, RomeToRio, etaskr and CoinJar to set up in Melbourne. Much of this activity has grown to occupy the factories, warehouses and light-industrial spaces once home to the local textile industry – and along with the increased apartment living has been a spur to the area’s urban renewal. So, for an increasing number of people, Richmond is both home and workplace.

Finally, while Richmond’s median property prices have maintained pace with recent growth rates for Melbourne’s established suburbs, they are still more favourable than some of the leafier neighbouring suburbs. True, plots and properties here are generally smaller, and you would be hard placed to find any McMansions – but I think this just adds to the area’s appeal.

*Bo-Bo = Bourgeois-Bohemian

Next week: Summing up the FinTech summit

A Tale of Two #FinTech Cities – Melbourne vs. Sydney….

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Inter-city rivalry between Melbourne and Sydney is nothing new. The fact that neither city is the national capital only adds to the frisson. The usual debates as to which is the better for sport, culture, beaches, food, weather, property prices, live music, public transport and coffee normally mean Melbourne edges out Sydney in most categories. (But then, I’m probably biased – however, having lived and worked in both, I think I am reasonably objective.)*

When it comes to startups, and FinTech in particular, the debate is beginning to hot up. At a recent FinTech Melbourne Meetup the topic was “is there room for both?”. The speakers, Toby Heap for Sydney, and Stuart Richardson for Melbourne, remained tactful and diplomatic, as it’s not really appropriate to talk about which is better – more a case of choosing “which is the right location for your own particular FinTech”. So, the debate avoided mere point-scoring, and tried to establish some commonalities, as well as provide some considered views on the benefits inherent within the key differences.

Both cities have a growing reputation for startup success, built on some core foundations: groups of angel investors and VC funds with an increasing FinTech focus; several accelerator programs, incubators and co-working spaces; and a community of founders and aspiring tech entrepreneurs.

From an industry perspective, two of the four Pillar Banks are headquartered in Sydney, and two in Melbourne. More insurers have their HQ’s in Sydney compared to Melbourne (apart from health insurance, where Melbourne hosts the largest market providers), while Tier 2 and regional banks (by their very nature) are more likely to be located outside either city (not including wholly owned brands of the Big 4).

As for pension funds and asset management, particularly in relation to Australia’s superannuation sector, Melbourne is clearly the bigger player, particularly for the largest industry funds (based on their historical links to the trade union movement). In addition, Melbourne is home to some substantial family offices, as well as specialist asset managers, including overseas firms. After all, Melbourne’s establishment wealth comes from the nineteenth century gold boom.

When it comes to markets, Sydney wins out by virtue of housing the main equities exchange, as well as being a hub for futures, fixed income and forex. Sydney also hosts more investment banks, including local branches of foreign players.

In some respects, the differences can be likened to the market roles and dynamics of London vs Edinburgh, New York vs Boston, Frankfurt vs Munich, or even Hong Kong vs Singapore, for example.

For me, however, the key distinction between Sydney and Melbourne can be summarised as: “Sydney trades, Melbourne invests”.

* Note: Content in Context is taking a well-deserved break. Starting this week, the next few posts will feature some brief blogs on different aspects of FinTech. Normal service will be resumed in early November

Next week: do we need a #FinTech safe harbour?

Cultural Overload: Oblique Strategies vs Major Tom

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This week, Content in Context took a break from start-ups, fintech and the information superhighway to immerse itself in some cultural overload, with hardly a digital device in sight. However, I didn’t need to wander very far to realise that digital technology is both enhancing and restricting our ability to engage with art, music, culture and live performance – while analogue still wins out in terms of creating tangible experiences.

What technology would Thomas Jerome Newton have used to interpret “David Bowie Is”? (Image found here.)

To start with, I went to the “David Bowie Is” exhibition currently showing at Melbourne’s ACMI. As a retrospective on Bowie’s music career, including his dalliances with mime, theatre, fashion, videos, cut-ups, painting and film, it’s pretty comprehensive. What makes it particularly engaging is the lack of digital trickery among the exhibits: no touch screens, no VR or AR spectacular, not even a smart phone app to accompany your visit. It’s all very museum-like sedateness, well-presented artefacts, and extensively annotated displays – not surprising given the V&A provenance.

The absence of complex digital displays or an interactive/interpretive visitor experience is somewhat surprising, given that Bowie has always been an early adopter of new technologies (after all, this is the man who launched his own ISP, BowieNet, and was one of the first musicians to securitise his songwriting royalties via the so-called Bowie Bonds). Not forgetting that  Bowie was using multiple characters, personas and alter-egos long before we got around to internet avatars.

Bowie’s remarkable run of studio albums in the 1970s (unparalleled in popular music) stretched the limits of contemporary recording standards, because each LP has a distinct sonic palette, based on the careful selection of locations, musicians and studio technology. There’s even a section dedicated to some lyric-writing software that Bowie used to automate his cut-up process (which emulated the Dadaists and writers like Burroughs and Gysin). And videos for some of his early 80s songs (“Ashes to Ashes”, “Fashion”, “Let’s Dance” and “China Girl”) were MTV staples when the medium was still in its infancy. (But as the exhibition reminds us, Bowie was using the short film format as early as the late 60s.)

The only real concession to digital technology is the audio guide, which uses a personal playback device. These devices are linked to either NFC tags or wireless beacons to trigger specific music, commentary or soundtracks when the visitor is in a relevant location. Mostly it works well, and provides a collage of sounds to accompany the more significant exhibits. However, the cut-over between some “trigger zones” is a bit abrupt, even clunky, and there is nothing interactive for the visitor to explore or experience.

At the end, each visitor was given a postcard with a promotional code to download a free Bowie album. All very nice, and a great idea, but poorly executed:

  • The choice of albums is limited to his more recent studio albums, and a fairly average live album (by Bowie’s standards) – so none of those classic 70s recordings
  • The promotion is linked to Google Play and the process of setting up and downloading my account was not very intuitive, and compared to iTunes was very clunky (at least on my iMac)
  • It was not possible to curate my own personal Bowie album, which could have been fun – now, I understand the reluctance to deconstruct complete albums into individual songs, but perhaps some specially selected and Bowie-approved thematic compilations (e.g., based on his many stage and studio personas) could have provided a neat compromise?

While I liked the fact that the exhibition mainly used analogue technology, I think there was a missed opportunity to create an additional layer of interactivity, either via the audio guide, or via a separate smart phone app or website (I’m thinking of MONA’s “O Device”, the NGV’s “Melbourne Now” app, or some of the marvelous exhibition apps developed by London’s Tate Modern, the Réunion des Musées Nationaux in France, and both the MCA and Gallery of NSW in Sydney). Something for the V&A and ACMI to think about?

Then, it was a short walk across Federation Square to the Arts Centre, for a 3-day extravaganza of live events (music, dance, theatre, mixed media) collectively known as “Supersense”. OK, so I appreciate that this curated festival was all about experiencing live performance up close and in the moment – without being (dis)intermediated by any layer of technology between performer and audience (apart from some 3D glasses I wore for one mixed media show). But a festival app would have been very useful to help navigate the warren of corridors and backstage areas where the festival was held, to let visitors know when events were due to start, and to notify them when there no more seats in the smaller performance spaces.  Also, the festival website’s complicated schedule of events was impossible to read on a smart phone, so an app would have been great!

Anyway, the festival format, range of styles and mixed quality inevitably meant it was a veritable curate’s egg – the broad theme made it difficult to establish a cohesive context, and yet there were some connections and overlaps (both direct links between performers, and indirect conceptual links among the cross-cultural references and influences). Again, an app would have helped to make those connections. But the organisers (and performers) are to be congratulated for pulling off this inaugural event, and I look forward to next year’s programme.

Finally, for the culturally aware (or just plain old trainspotters) there were a number of connections to be made between “Bowie Is” and “Supersense”:

  • The performance of Brian Eno‘s ground-breaking ambient composition “Discreet Music” by The Necks and friends reminded us of Eno’s crucial role in recording Bowie’s trio of Berlin albums, “Low”, “Heroes” and “Lodger”
  • More specifically, the incorporation of Eno’s “Oblique Strategies” into the “Discreet Music” concert was very pertinent; not only did Eno use this system of random instructions when working on “Lodger”, he gave Bowie his own deck of “Oblique Strategies” cards, which are on display at ACMI
  • The festival finale by John Cale (also a sometime collaborator with Eno) included versions of “I’m Waiting for My Man” and “Venus in Furs” which he first recorded with The Velvet Underground in the 60s – and Bowie was one of the earliest artists to cover songs by The Velvet Underground in the early 70s.
  • Bowie’s early career incorporated mime, poetry and performance art, reflecting his influences and interests. In turn, thanks to the influence of cultural polymaths like him, a festival as diverse as Supersense seems perfectly natural to contemporary audiences.

Next week: Tourism – time to get digital

 

 

Yet another #co-working space opens in #Melbourne – what’s going on?

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Co-working spaces continue to pop-up all over Melbourne. The latest I’ve heard about is LSX (aka Lennox Street Exchange, in the heart of Richmond’s startup zone), which opened in September.

I’ve not had the opportunity to visit all of these venues – but I’ve been able to spend some time in a few of them such as York Butter Factory, the Hub, inspire9, Launchpad and Queens Collective. The decor and ambience are usually New York loft conversion meets warehouse chic meets funky cafe meets London Free School. Some offer little more than a serviced office with some added startup appeal; several are closely linked to incubator programmes and angel investors; and a couple want to create a whole philosophical/spiritual experience around personal development, collaboration and sustainability.

A key attraction of co-working spaces for early-stage startups and budding entrepreneurs is the relatively low-cost business accommodation. Plus, if you are new to being self-employed/freelance, or if you are just starting your own business, going to an office (at least once a week) can instil some discipline, provide a change of scenery to the home office (or garage), help with networking contacts, and offer the chance to meet people who can offer skills you don’t have.

But, these spaces are mostly open plan, have an itinerant population that comes and goes, and the communal kitchens sometimes remind me of the worst shared houses I have lived in….. So, you have to enjoy that sort of vibe, and as we know, open plan offices are not always conducive to productivity or personal concentration.

There are some genuinely philanthropic values inherent in a number of these venues, but others are more commercial and seem only interested in getting investors through the door to nurture the “talent” they think they have uncovered.

If you are thinking of signing up to a co-working space, it pays to do your due diligence:

  • Commitment – not just the cost, but time and other contributions that may be expected of you
  • Values – it helps if your values generally align with those of the hosts and other members; if you’re not a creative type, or if 3-D gaming development is not your thing, maybe look elsewhere
  • Location – proximity to prospective clients and/or partners and collaborators may be more important than a cool hot-desking venue in a trendy part of town
  • Services – what’s included in the membership fees and/or rent? are there any hidden extras?
  • Insurance – make sure the premises are up to date with their building and other statutory insurances; do you still need to take out professional indemnity/public liability policies; are your personal belongings and equipment covered while they are on site?
  • Ownership – are you buying a membership or a “share” in a business? if the former, does this carry any voting rights at member meetings? if the latter, could you be taking on more legal risk or financial liability if the venue fails?

No doubt there are some vibrant co-working communities, that offer great support and service to the growing number of people who want to “do their own thing” rather than join a more corporate environment. Even some banks seem to be getting in on the act, as they recognise an opportunity to engage with their business customers via co-working spaces and startup facilities.

Next week: Who’s making money in financial data?